T2W Trading Community

Meet David and Homer

And of course there is the office politics. No organisation is without this bewildering phenomenon. But the fact is that your boss is more likely to be as inspirational as David Brent than Gordon Gecko. This will make you wonder how on earth he got to be your boss in the first place. Financial institutions are notoriously badly managed. Why? Because the good ones have already left by the time they take stock of their lives and approach the stage mentioned in the paragraph above. They have probably also made enough money to pay the mortgage off on the pile in Chigwell. They can afford to leave. The one’s who are left, unfortunately, are thus catapulted to positions unbecoming of an individual who would make Homer Simpson look competent. It’s enough to make you quake in your designer boots.

But despite those downsides (and let’s face it, they are not downsides that are unique to the City), how do I get my foot in the door and start my career in high finance? The scenario where you are picked to work for a bulge bracket firm through the university milk round is of course ideal. But few of us are born with (OK, worked hard enough at school to acquire) the supernatural talents required to be one of those chosen few.

There is hope

There are 308,000 people who work in the financial sector in the City. Only a small minority of those will have come from the milk round. There is hope for you yet.

You could do worse than follow the route that I took. Although my career began over 20 years ago in 1984, the route is still possible today. I had a fascination with the stock market from a very early age. When I was 17 I was the treasurer of an investment club which had originally been set up by one of my teachers at school. We also had the huge benefit of a market professional (the Chairman of Ivory & Sime, Alec Hammond-Chambers) as our mentor. Today, I can still remember the core holdings of our portfolio; Racal Electronics, United Biscuits, Kwik-Fit, Britoil, John Menzies, Guinness and Royal Bank of Scotland.

By the time I had taken my A Levels ( a handful of respectable grades in Spanish, French and English), I was in that very rare position where I knew what I wanted to do as a career – anything to do with the stock market and investments. Against the judgment of many others at the time, I opted not to go to university at all, but to try and find a position working for a stockbroker. I had no pretensions about how lowly the position might be, I had already honed my tea and coffee making skills in the hope that at least I might be able to learn something and build up some experience.

In 1984, stockbrokers were still partnerships The Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanleys and Merrill Lynch’s of this world were not allowed, as foreign entities, to be members of the London Stock Exchange. Trading still took place on the floor of the exchange, and dual capacity had yet to come into effect. The market was dominated by British firms such as Rowe & Pitman, Scrimgeour Vickers, James Capel, Wood Mackenzie, de Zoete & Bevan, Cazenove, Smith Newcourt etc. These names are long gone, but following de-regulation of the markets, those companies were swallowed up and now exist as UBS, Citigroup, HSBC, RBOS, CSFB, JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch.

As I started to put together my CV, I decided to write to all the leading stockbrokers asking if I could work in their offices for 2 weeks without pay. This would mean that I could gain some experience, and hopefully they could benefit from someone who was prepared to make the tea & coffee as well!

Unsurprisingly, I received many replies with the opening line…”We regret to inform you…”. In many instances I received no reply at all. Some weeks went by without a single acceptance to my offer. I was becoming hugely disheartened. How could anyone turn down an offer of free labour? How was I ever going to land a career as a stockbroker?

It was a not unusual dark and depressing day in Edinburgh when the telephone rang. It was the Head of Personnel of Wood Mackenzie & Co stockbrokers in Edinburgh. I had already received a letter from them declining my offer saying that my letter would be “kept on file.” That phrase was as credible to me as “the cheque is in the post”.